Austenesque Lovers TBR Challenge 2019 discussion

Aiming for 75 published and unpublished books/stories.

1. Closer (unpublished) - 3.5 stars
2. The Wedding Day--Unequal Affections Vignette (unpublished) - 3 stars
3. Proof of Love by Brenda Webb - 3.5 stars
4. Undeceived by Karen Cox - 4.5 stars
5. Life Begins at Forty (unpublished) - 2.5 stars
6. The End of a Very Long, Bad Day (reread) (unpublished) - 5 stars
7. The Best Part of Love by Amy D'Orazio - 4 starts
8. Through a Different Lens by Riana Everly - 2 stars
9. A Love Story by Judy-Lynne (unpublished) - 2 stars
10. The Lost Night by Sarah Beth (Fumar) (unpublished) - 4 stars
11. Pride Before a Fall by JaneV (unpublished) - 4 stars
12. A Purrfect Romance by JaneV (unpublished) - 4 stars
13. Mr. Darcy's Mail Order Bride by J. Dawn King - 2.5 stars
14. For the Love of Lizzy by JaneV (unpublished) - 4 stars
15. No Other Escape by RafeDurk (unpublished) - 2 stars
16. Voice to Love by MEN (Misha, Enid Nina) (unpublished) - 2 stars
17. No Cupid Contract by Jane Williams (story found in Headstrong Girls: A Bit of Mystery; A Bit of Love; All Inspired by Jane Austen by Enid Wilson, June Williams, Debra Anne Watson) - 3 stars
18. Second Impressions by Amy George - 3 stars
19. All I Want for Christmas by JaneV (unpublished) -4 stars
20. The Events at Branxbourne by Caitlin Williams - 5 stars
21. The Best Laid Flight Plans by Leigh Dreyer - 4 stars
22. The Flight Path Less Traveled by Leigh Dreyer - 3.5 stars
23. Never Too Late for Love by P.M. Harding (reread) - 4 stars
24. Pen and Prejudice by Claire M. Johnson - 2 stars
25. The Coming of Age of Elizabeth Bennet - 4.5 stars
26. Green Card by Elizabeth Adams - 3 stars
27. Sketching Character: A Jane Austen Inspired Novel by Pamela Lynne - 3.5 stars
28. Drive and Determination by Kara Louise - 4 stars
29. After the Wedding by LissaMU (unpublished) - 3.5 stars
30. These Dreams: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Nicole Clarkston - 3 stars
31. The Mist of Her Memory: A Pride and Prejudice Suspense Variation by Susan Lauder - 3 stars
32. Longborn's Songbird by Beau North - 5 stars
33. Ardently: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Caitlin Williams - 4 stars
34. And Grace Will Lead Me Home by Ashley DB (unpublished) - 3.5 stars
35. What We Did On Our Holidays by Rachael (unpublished) 4 stars
36. Nefarious: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Nicole Clarkston - 4 starts
37. It's Always Been You by L.L. Diamond - 3.5 stars
38. To Conquer Pride: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Jennifer Altman - 4.5 stars
39. The Colonel by Beau North - 5 stars
40. These Dreams: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Nicole Clarkston - 4.5 stars
41. Darcy in Hollywood by Victoria Kincaid - 3.5 stars
42. A Lady's Reputation by Amy D'Orazio - 4 stars
43. A Pinch of Salt by Lucy S (unpublished) - 4.5 stars
44. Seasoned with Love by Lucy S (unpublished) - 2 stars

Megan wrote: "Aiming for 75 books/stories, including published and unpublished."

Great goal and great tracker name!!!

I'm with Kirk, what a fabulous tracker name and good luck on your 2019 reading journey :)

If I really wanted to improve my mind by extensive reading, I would commit to reading Latin or Russian Literature...lol.

LOL!! I'm with everyone else... great Tracker name.

I know this is a side-tidbit but I can't help but share it. My printer went wonky on me and my colleague looked at the printout and said it was in Russian. She and her husband had studied Russian as missionaries. She then proceeded to read the report back to me. Apparently, the printer defaulted to Russian or it simply switched languages. Never did find out why. I thought it was hilarious.

Wishing you much success as you 'improve your mind,' Megan.

That's so funny and creepy, Jeanne! It reminds me of that scene in the movie Jumping Jack Flash where Whooping Goldberg is working in the basement of a bank and her computer keeps picking up Russian TV shows featuring hefty women doing workouts.

Anyone that says they like Russian literature is lying. They just want to sound intellectual. Either that or they are clinically depressed.

Started the unpublished story "Closer" yesterday. Elizabeth is a dancer who injured her leg in a car accident. Darcy is a doctor who tries to repair it. So far pretty good. I tend to like any story where Elizabeth is a ballet dancer.

Have you read The Muse: A Pride and Prejudice Variation, Megan? Wonderful modern P&P with D&E both as ballet dancers.

Oh yeah. Read that a while back.

Megan where is 'Closer' located? Do you have a link? It sounds interesting.

Debbie, I loved 'The Muse.'

It's been years, but that IS one that's hard to forget!

One down, 74 to go.

Yep. One book at a time, girl!

Just finished Undeceived and thought it was amazing. Karen Cox is the master of mood in the JAFF world, in my opinion. Almost finished with the first level.

Love your tracker name,Megan!
Yes,Cat's books are fantastic,aren't they? Glad you enjoyed it so much.

I’m going to have to keep track of what books I have read. This is tougher than I thought. I’ll get there.

Finished two shot, unpublished stories - Life Begins at Forty and The End of a Very Long, Bad Day. I loved the premise of Life Begins at Forty with a 40-year-old regency Elizabeth who was unmarried, but enjoying casual sex with Darcy (not very historically accurate, but oh well), but the execution of it wasn't all that great. The End of a Very Long, Bad Day is one of my favorite short JAFF stories. Elizabeth is a teacher and Darcy comforts me. As a teacher, I absolutely love the story and always makes me feel after a very long, bad day of teaching.

Haven't read a whole lot this past week or so. Been super busy with work and been falling asleep the moment my head it's the pillow. Of course, I feel like I'm failing my Goodreads goal, which I think is pretty funny. Oh well.

Finished The Best Part of Love. I loved it, except that I felt there was one plot point that was kind of weak and needed to be a bit further developed to make it flow a bit better, hence the 4 star rating. Still, it was fantastic.

No worries, Megan. It is still early in the year. No stressing. We read to enjoy.

So I read the first 50-75 pages of Through a Different Lens and I decided to put it down. I'm a special education teacher. I also have a disability myself. As a kid, I was diagnosed with something called a speech pragmatics disorder. Today that would fall under the autism spectrum. I haven't been officially diagnosed as being on the spectrum, but I do have a lot of characteristics of it.

My main issue is that it was very obviously written from the perspective of a parent or caretaker of someone with autism - not an actual autistic. This is a major complaint in the disability community. A lot of what is written about disabilities come from people who don't have disabilities. While I respect parents and caretakers and their experience, they don't know what it is like to have a disability. In my opinion, it's kind of like a white person writing about being black in this country. You really don't know what it is like until you have experienced itself.

In the Deaf community, who leads the community is more what I see spoken of. What did you find that marked the story as being written by a caregiver?

Marlene wrote: "In the Deaf community, who leads the community is more what I see spoken of. What did you find that marked the story as being written by a caregiver?"

I really don't know a whole lot about the deaf community, except that out of all the different disability communities, they are by far the most radical.

As far as the book being written by a caretaker, it was just little things. They way autism is described. Hard to pin point, but I'm willing to bet good money on it.

On a major unpublished moderns kick right now. Don't be surprised if they're full of angst and deal with dark and depressing topics. Going through a lot right now and reading angst-filled JAFF is like free therapy for me. Anyway, I enjoyed Pride Before a Fall. My main complaint was that the ending felt a bit rushed. Loved the cat.

Megan wrote: "I really don't know a whole lot about the deaf community, except that out of all the different disability communities, they are by far the most radical. "

That may be because the deaf community has its own culture with its own language. And deaf people want to speak for themselves, individually and collectively. I remember that at one point, I realized that I had to tell my mother to stop speaking for me. :-) Having deaf principals at residential schools, etc. is just an extension of that, I think.

Didn't really care for Mr. Darcy's Mail Order Bride. I felt the writing was a bit bland. Plus, I've never been all that interested in the west, so the subject didn't really interest me.

Finished another unpublished story by JaneV - For the Love of Lizzy. I really love her steamy moderns (my personal favorites).

Just read two really bad unpublished short stories. Ugh.

Enjoyed No Cupid Contract. It wasn't the best written story, but Elizabeth was such a bad ass that I couldn't help, but like it.

Finished Second Impressions by Amy George. There were things that I loved about this book. I loved how they had a character who seemed so modern. Who slept with a man before marriage. Who was extremely outspoken. Who didn't seem to want children. However, at the same time, there were also characters that I felt were very reactionary, such as the Indian who kidnapped Emeline and his African guard. Why did an Indian and an African have to be the bad guys? It just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Just finished another story by JaneV. Her moderns are fantastic. Loved this one, because it touched on PTSD, something that affects me very deeply. A huge part of my recovery has been books, in particular JAFF. So any story that touches on this topic is very helpful.

Here is the link: http://meryton.com/aha/index.php?show...

Thank you for your recommendation Megan. I will check out the JaneV story, do not think I have read that.